Truth
by G. R. Miller
Summary: After the brutal death of his father, Lusha encounters a beautiful but mysterious Matoran named Ania. She seeks his help... and more. Everything he knew is changed in an instant. The legend begins...


**Summary: After the brutal death of his father, Lusha encounters a beautiful but mysterious Matoran named Ania. She seeks his help and more. Everything he knew is changed in an instant. The legend begins...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own BIONICLE. LEGO owns all rights to its characters, creatures and original plot lines. I do own Lusha; he is my own original creation, so are Ania, Zland, Claranie Chosinburge, and Kamel.**

**Truth**

**Chapter 1**

**In Which Trouble's Children Arrive**

Lusha was not your ordinary Matoran. His life was full of loss and despair. His father, who was just slightly shorter than he, had been murdered a week earlier. His friendly and knowledgeable teacher had recently disappeared. His brother had abandoned him and did not feel the loss of their father. And his mother. His mother had died when he and his brother were young in a fire.

Today, as he had the past week, he wandered aimlessly through the forest that surrounded his home village. He needed to go back home and get his things, check on his brother, and then go searching for his father's murderer, something he had been forbidden from doing by the First Councilor. For now, he could at least search, think, listen, dream, and hope for signs for the assassin.

He had been forbidden to do things by the First Councilor before. When he was young, he was not allowed to go out past dark. However, he and Zland, his teacher, had done it anyway. Zland saw it important that his student get the best education possible and to do that, Lusha needed to experience things. As a youth, he had been forbidden from entering the Chosimburg Orchards. Claranie Chosinburge had always snuck him in. After a silly prank he and his brother had preformed on the Turaga of Mata Nui, they were banned from the temple. The Turaga, of course, laughed it off and thought of it as a childish prank.

These were only amongst the few that he could recall at the moment, being half-delusional and all, but there were many more thing he was banned from doing. One of them was being in this forest alone.

**xXx**

He leaned on a thick tree that stood 2.9 bio above his head. There was a vine he recognized strangling the tree. He could not remember its name, but he knew that he knew it.

Lusha's father had kept a sprig of the plant in a blue painted pot that Lusha had made when he was very young. It remained alive even years without water but it had died when he had been told of his father's murder.

He looked at it now, killing the tree and drawing sap from beneath the strong bark. It was twisted and the color of cold ash. The pods had small thorns that were the color of fresh blood.

Lusha shook his head, sighed, and wiped the sweat off his mask. As he did, his hand scrapped across one of the vine's pods, leaving a long, red gash. He cursed and quickly applied pressure. It was then he noticed there was a thorn inside.

Lusha reached down to his belt for his knife, realizing for the first time that week, he had forgotten to grab it in his depression. So, he dug at it as best he could, finding he could only make the gash bigger.

He stopped and looked around, glad to see the tree he had been looking for. He quickly dug at the roots and broke a piece off. He rubbed the clear liquid of the root on the gash, smiling. This plant's roots were known for helping all sorts of cuts and wounds quicker than average healing techniques.

The Matoran looked at the vine and decided it was trouble.

"Trouble sires three children," was always what Matoran and the Turaga told him.

He walked on, the pain of the gash clearing his mind and allowing him to think. He should go back home now. Many villagers were probably worried stiff about him and, by now, the border patrol was probably looking out for him.

Yes, returning home sounded good.

Lusha looked to the sky and found the sun was just rising on another crisp, autumn morning. He frowned. Where were the birds? The forest was dead silent. Nothing moved, nothing breathed.

The Matoran caught sight of Trouble's second child. It was big and it could fly. He could not catch its color, for it moved to fast for him to see. Within seconds it was out of sight. And Lusha ran to find it. If it was trouble heading for home, he needed to try and stop it.

When he came to a cliff overlooking Proto Lake, he stopped to catch his breath. The thing was a small dot on the horizon and it was shrinking, dipping in and out of hills until it was gone all-together.

He should go back home now and tell his brother, Kamel, what had happened. No, Kamel would frown and be angry with him for being so near the border.

Sighing, Lusha thought about what he should do. Go home and tell Kamel about the thing in the sky, facing the consequences; or go home and just pretend nothing ever happened.

As he thought, movement across the lake caught his eye. The Matoran strained his eyes to see what had moved. It was a person. Maybe it was Locke, the leader of the border patrol. Who else would be around here besides his good friend?

No, it was not Locke, it was a female Matoran of odd colors. What tribe was she from to have such strange coloring? Lusha watched her. She was not in a hurry, but she was not strolling through the forest. She was an experienced traveler. She had to be, for no one lived near Proto Lake.

More movement snatched his attention. Lusha's eyes searched the shadows and shade. She was being followed by four men dressed in cloaks that blended in with the forest. They moved with grace and stealth, staying far enough back so she could not see them. Moving. Waiting. Looking. Lusha straightened, eyes wide, his attention riveted.

They were stalking her.

In an instant he knew: this was the third child of Trouble.

**This is my first fanfic, please tell me what you think of it.**


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